As chair of the Social Studies department at Horace Greeley I cannot thank you enough for your generous support for the work in our department.  As I told Darleen Nicolosi in September, we are all just “tickled pink” to finally have a Smartboard in each social studies classroom. 

 

The Smartboard and its suite of tools have tremendous potential to transform and enhance our practice and student learning.  At a basic level, we are finding they make our lessons more fluid, allowing for better transitions and pacing, thus helping students stay focused.  More so, the Smartboard is making our lessons more dynamic, allowing for more use of student work to promote discussion and analysis.  Yet the greatest power of the Smartboard may be when we use it in conjunction with the laptops to transform group work and student presentations.  Students are becoming empowered, finding their work and thinking validated.

 

Your support of Robert Zambernardi and his cutting edge work with the class set of Netbooks is also greatly appreciated.  Your support is enabling him to revolutionize how to conceptualize student learning in the classroom.  He is a mentor and model for the rest of us. 

 

As I am sure you are aware, Chris Dede from Harvard University spoke to the faculty at the Superintendent’s Conference Day about technology in the classroom.  His talk was inspiring yet humbling in how quickly changes in technology are changing the lives of our students and the way we teach.  Your generous support is helping us keep up with the pace of change.  Thank you.

                                                                                              

                                                                                                Mary Devane

                                                                                                Social Studies Chair